Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) (7 page)

Kent glanced at his companion.  He did not know which was more disquieting, Hinton’s revelation or the utterly calm expression on Holmes’ face.  There was an aura of absolute serenity surrounding the detective, and Kent was vaguely reminded of the saints of old, whose serene faces he had seen in the stained-glass windows of the chapels of his youth.

“Do you know where we might find Moesen Maddoc, Professor?” voiced Kent in the awkward silence following Hinton’s outburst.  “Madman or not, it is quite important that we speak to him.”

Hinton shook his head.  “I’ve no idea, and no desire to know.”  He then frowned and gently tapped his temple with a lean forefinger.  “However, there is one person you might try in London, if memory serves me correct, a young man named Wells, Herbert George Wells, a writer of increasing note upon a variety of subjects, but having proclivities toward fiction.  He turned a sympathetic ear toward Maddoc when we three were at the Royal College.  He wrote a piece of flippancy back in ‘88, fictionalising his charlatanry, but they may yet be acquaintances in spite of it.  I’ve no idea, for I no longer have anything in common with either of them, though I have nothing against Wells personally.”  He wrote an address on the back of an envelope and handed it to Kent.  “He lives not five miles from here, so if you want further intelligence about Moesen Maddoc and his chicanery, please leave me to my rest and seek instead H.G. Wells.”

The address given was Number Twelve, Mornington Terrace, just north and west of the great expanse of Regents Park.  They hailed a hansom at the intersection of the Chelsea Embankment and Flood Street, then raced up Kings Road into Knightsbridge and Piccadilly.  At this hour of the morning, traffic was of course sparse, but they were hardly alone in the streets, for it was not the nature of the capital of the world to ever fully slumber, and it no great surprise to see representatives of all social classes about on one errand or another.  Up Park Crescent to Marylebone Road, then onto the Hampstead Road and, finally, Mornington Terrace, a quiet lane named after the Earl of Mornington, brother of the great Wellington and  Governor-General of India, home to rows of attached brick residences, neat and unpretentious, set back from the broad walkways behind wrought-iron fences, with doorways atop short stairs.

Unlike other homes on the street, a light burned within Number Twelve.  Their quiet knock upon the door was answered by a thin, neatly groomed man with a straggly brown moustache and active blue eyes.  There was something about the man that exuded vitality despite the lateness of the hour.

“Mr Wells?” Kent said.

“Yes, I am Herbert Wells,” the man admitted.

“I’m Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard, and this is Mr Sherlock Holmes,” he said.

“A great and very unexpected pleasure, Mr Holmes,” Wells enthused.

“Thank you, Mr Wells.”

“Please forgive the lateness of our visit, Mr Wells,” Kent continued, “but our mission is quite urgent.”

“By all means, please come in, gentlemen,” Wells said.  “You are my first visitors since moving here.”

“Recently moved?” Holmes asked.

“Quite recently,” Wells replied.  “From January till March, I lived nearby at Number Seven, Mornington Place, following…well, personal difficulties of which I am not disposed to speak.”

Wells ushered them into a nicely furnished sitting room.  The only light came from a paraffin lamp upon a desk littered with writing paper, but Wells turned up two gas lamps, driving back the shadows. 

“Please be seated.  You did not awaken me,” Wells explained, gesturing toward the desk, “as I was working upon a story for publication.”

“A novel?” Holmes asked.

“A short novel,” Wells replied.  “A form of fiction I have termed the scientific romance, a genre utilising many of the conventions of the traditional romantic novel, but also employing philosophies of science.”

“Such as the possibility of travelling through time?” Holmes asked.

Wells’ eyes flew wide open at Holmes’ words.  “Mr Holmes, I have heard many outlandish claims made about you and your powers of observation and induction, but how could you possibly know what tale upon which I am currently engaged?”

“Then it is true that you are fictionalising the geometric theories of Moesen Maddoc?” Kent asked.

“Actually, yes,” Wells replied, perplexed.  “Are either of you gentlemen familiar with ‘The Chronic Argonauts,’ which I penned some years back?”

Neither was.

“Well, it was a tale which saw publication before I had carried the idea to full fruition,” the writer admitted.  “If it were possible to buy back every issue of the three consecutive numbers of the journal in which it was published, I would gladly do so.  As you surmised, Mr Holmes, it was a thin fictionalisation of rumours circulating about Maddoc when we were at the Normal School of Science (now the Royal College), mixed in with liberal doses of Professor Charles Hinton’s highly imaginative views on the fairyland of higher geometry.”

“Professor Hinton suggested we speak to you,” Holmes said.

“I had no idea the old boy was back in London,” Wells said.  “We all had something of a falling out after the publication of ‘The Chronic Argonauts,’ but Maddoc was quicker to forgive my literary foolishness than was Hinton.”

“If you wrote up Maddoc’s work years ago,” Kent said, “what are you working on now?”

“A grander vision of the theme explored as a social commentary on the class war that will one day split society if we cannot create a truly egalitarian world,” Wells explained.  “I have also abandoned the somewhat obtuse, almost jocular title of my youth in favour of the more descriptive, though melodramatic, designation of 
The Time Machine
. But I fail to see how an imaginative novel of scientific philosophy could at all be of interest to Scotland Yard.”

“In itself, it is not,” Kent admitted, “but we are looking for Maddoc.  Have you seen him of late?  Do you know where we might find him?”

“I last saw Maddoc not long ago, at his house in Richmond, near Cholmondeley Walk overlooking the Green, and he was in quite a frightful state,” Wells said.  “It was on the occasion of a dinner party given for a few wide-minded acquaintances.  In fact, gentlemen, the revelations made that night are what prompted me to gather together my notes upon the subject and re-examine ideas that have been fermenting within my mind almost a decade, and set them into a coherent narrative.”

“What revelations, Mr Wells?” Kent asked.

“Maddoc’s machine,” Wells replied, a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice.  “Moesen Maddoc has constructed a working Time Machine and has used it to visit humanity’s future.  Permit me to explain…”

Chapter VIII

The Phantom of Richmond

Inspector Charles Kent and Sherlock Holmes sat across from each other in the railway car, waiting for the penultimate train to Richmond to pull out of mazey Waterloo Station.  They were alone in the car, and Holmes was as silent as he had been all the way down from St Pancras after leaving Wells; his chin rested upon his breast, his eyes were half closed, a clay pipe was gripped tightly between his teeth, and he puffed furiously.

He was an odd duck, this Sherlock Holmes, Kent reflected as he gazed out the compartment window, and at the reflection of his companion in the window.  He had no idea what to make of the fantastic story related by Wells regarding either the working model of the Time Machine, or of the incredible future period related by Maddoc to Wells and the others.  While Kent did not automatically dismiss the possibility, no matter how remote its likelihood, of a machine to navigate the unknown reaches of time – after all, they were living in an age of scientific marvels such as the electric telephone and Cayley’s steam aeroplane – he could not bring himself to give any credence to the development of two separate races from present humanity, a Darwinian evolution, or devolution, as the case may be.  Charles Darwin had been dead just twelve years, but his shadow still loomed large over society, and his damnable theories continued to challenge the common sense of man and the basic religious principles that were the foundation of civilisation.  In Darwin’s Blasphemous Gospel, humanity owed its superior position in creation not to endowments from a beneficent Creator but to accidents of birth, deformations that decried the veracity of Biblical Genesis.  The idea that the same biological processes which had raised man to the pinnacle of culture in the latter years of the Nineteenth Century could also bring about his ultimate degradation, terminating in the effete savagery of the Eloi and the inhumanity of the Morlocks, was the final mockery of man and God.  Kent would admit to the possibility of the Time Machine, but not to Creation without a Creator.

“Odd that Professor Hinton would lie about Wells, is it not?” Holmes remarked.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Hinton unhesitatingly wrote down an address in which Wells has resided for less than a week,” Holmes explained.  “Yet Hinton claimed no close association with the man for some time, and we have no reason to disbelieve Wells’ claim to ignorance that Hinton had returned to London.”

“Do you think it of importance?”

“To our quest, no,” Holmes decided.  “But it is curious.”

Kent turned his attention to the platform of London’s busiest railway station and the crowds present even at this hour, seeking their ways among the chaos of Waterloo and its seemingly random array of number platform lines, seeking trains which never ceased their comings and goings.  Were his fellow humans really no more than apes in frock coats and top hats, fated to become nothing more than animals of one kind or another at the end of time?  Was creation nothing more than blind chance, a symphony with neither orchestration nor conductor?  Despite the strength of the beliefs that had guided him all his life, those beliefs were now as ashes in his mouth.  He clenched his fists, closed his eyes and cursed Darwin’s scientific minions, the relentless march of “progress” at the expense of all that was decent and pious.

“There is no reason to believe Maddoc told Wells the truth at the dinner party,” Holmes said suddenly.  “There is no reason to believe, even given the possibility of the existence of the Time Machine, that the future is anything than what we make of it.  The past may be set, but we must at least have faith that we can decide our own fates.”

A guard blew a boarding whistle, and almost immediately the train pulled away from the platform with a series of jerks, its motions smoothing out as it crawled into the night.  It moved out from under the lattice-beamed roof of the massive station, complex switching signals moving it from one set of tracks to another. To their left as they neared the end of the rail-yard was the tiny Necropolis Station, a gloom-shrouded private terminus  used for funeral trains running to Brookwood Cemetery.  The train cleared Waterloo Road and headed toward Vauxhall down the line. 

“I hope that is true, Holmes,” Kent said.  “I know Wells is applying not only a literary imagination but a philosophical twist to whatever Maddoc told him, but even if only a part of the tale is true, then what good is our struggle?  Why strive toward the light if everything ends in darkness anyway, if the endless struggle between good and evil becomes the mockery of Eloi and Morlock?”  He paused and glanced out the window as the train rushed past the darkened almshouses along Wandsworth Street.  “What do you believe, Holmes?”

Sherlock Holmes struck a match and lit the pipe which had gone out.  “I find, generally speaking, that belief clouds the mind almost as much as suspicion liberates it.”

The train steamed along Putney Street and across Barnes Common, now and then coming into sight of the Thames.  On the right, they passed the vast blackness of Kew Gardens and soon pulled into Richmond Station.  At the booking office they were able to rouse the white-haired agent and hire a cart, and lad to drive them.  Within fifteen minutes, they were across sleeping Richmond and standing before the shadow-infested manse of Moesen Maddoc, a man subjected, they were told by the lad, to much local curiosity because of the peculiar scientific experiments he was rumoured to conduct and the recent inexplicable events in the region which villagers connected by superstition to whatever scientific secrets resided in his workshop.

“Couldn’t say exactly, guv,” the lad replied when Kent pressed him for details. “Things seen in the night what no one can explain, pale beasts flitting in the wild parts of the Old Deer Park and down Richmond Park, animals carried off and carcasses left with marks never made by no fox.  Just phantoms and high weirdness, if you knows what I mean, and who else is there to lay blame against but the scientific chap?  Leastwise that’s what people hereabouts are thinking, though doing no more than windows and doors are closed tight and double bolted.”

Instructing the lad to wait for them, Holmes and Kent approached the impressive brick mansion by way of a long walkway passing through overgrown gardens.  Projecting from the main portion of the house and onto a wide lawn was an annex with frosted glass panes all about; even though a dim light wavered within, no details could be discerned.

“That must be the workroom from which all evil springs,” Kent said caustically.

“Simple people seek simple answers,” Holmes replied.  “We may be less than fifteen miles from the most populous, most cultured city in the world, but the folk who dwell away their lives in tiny English villages, even one that has become as much a destination as Richmond, have more in common with hut-dwellers in jungles half a world away than with their fellows in the metropolis upon their doorstep.  It is quite true, as the American writer claims, ‘All the world may be found within twenty miles of Charing Cross.’”

“So you see Maddoc a victim of country prejudices?” Kent asked.

Holmes pursed his lips thoughtfully.  “Not necessarily, Inspector.  Consider the furtive white shapes seen moving through the brush and the vanished and slaughtered animals – do they bring anything to mind?”

“Why, yes, the…”  His mouth gaped.  “Good God, Holmes!  Could this be the source of the trouble in London, both the Ghosts and the Vanishments?”

“Perhaps its genesis,” Holmes conceded, “but unlikely its centre any longer.”

“The distance from London?”  Kent said.  “The likelihood of discovery.”

Holmes nodded.  “Consider also the elements of Maddoc’s story, even though related as hearsay by Wells, the beasts of the future.  Do they not bear a striking resemblance to the so-called Ghosts?”

“Morlocks?” sneered Kent.  “Morlocks in London?”

“Presented merely as a matter of speculation at this point,” Holmes said quickly.  “Its certainty would depend upon the veracity of the tale related by Maddoc to his dinner guests than evening.”

“A joke of some kind?”

“One look into Maddoc’s eyes belies that thought.”

“A lie?” suggested Kent.

“At least not the whole truth,” Holmes replied.  “There are inconsistencies in the story related by Wells.  If he accurately recorded the tale as told by Maddoc, then the inconsistencies are Maddoc’s, perhaps introduced by design, though it is more likely they stem from Maddoc’s lack or preparedness, a tale concocted upon the spur of the moment, containing elements of experience, yet at the same time with key elements withheld or changed, for reasons unknown.  I have no doubt the story told us this night by H.G. Wells will bear only a passing resemblance to the novel he will ultimately publish, that he will smooth over all the rough spots and bend its narrative to support whatever philosophy he cherishes.”  Holmes allowed himself a slight smile and said: “Believe me, Inspector Kent, I, of all people, know what liberties writers take with the truth.”

They approached the doorway and knocked.  Their summons was eventually answered by a small grey-haired lady pulling a dressing gown tight before her and holding out a candle in a trembling hand.

“What do you want at this ungodly hour?” she demanded.

“This is the home of Moesen Maddoc?”  Kent asked.

“It is and I am Mrs Watchett, the housekeeper.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “Who is asking?”

“Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard.”  He showed her his identification.

“And you?”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes.”

She eyed him even more suspiciously.  “I guess you’re not dead after all, but you don’t look much like the drawings published in the
Strand
.”

“Is Mr Maddoc at home?” Kent asked.

The old housekeeper shook her head and uttered a sigh of exasperation.  “I kanna keep track of his comings and goings.  I think he is here, and he is gone; I think he is gone and he appears out of nowhere.  With him acting so oddly since the night of the dinner party when he was set upon by coves, and so many peculiar events in the area, I feel I’m almost at wit’s end.”

“May we come in, Mrs Watchett?” Kent asked.  “We’ve come all the way down from London.”

She looked doubtful.

“I assure you it will be all right,” Holmes told her.  “You have my word.”

After a moment, she eased the door open far enough for the two men to slip within, after which she quickly shut it, turned the key in the lock and threw bolts top and bottom.

“I don’t know where he is,” she snapped. “He may be here or no.”

“We’ll be fine,” Kent replied.  “We will await Mr Maddoc’s arrival.”

She shook her head in exasperation.  “Suit yourself.  I am going back to bed.”

“Mrs Watchett,” said Holmes, “you related that Mr Maddoc had been attacked by coves just before attending a dinner party he gave recently.”

“That is not exactly what I said,” she corrected, “but it is what happened.”

“You heard the story related by Mr Maddoc to his guests?”

“Aye,” she replied, “and gulling good it was too.”

“One more thing, Mrs Watchett,” Holmes said as she started to turn away.  “When Mr Maddoc joined his guests, after being attacked by thieves, did he come through one of the outside doors?”

“No, sir,” she replied. “He came through the door leading to his laboratory.  But it has an outside door of its own.”

“Thank you, Mrs Watchett.”

“Good night, gentlemen,” she said.  “Watch your manners and stay out of mischief.”

Kent waited till she was out of the room and mounting the stairs, then whispered to Holmes:  “A tough old bird, that one.”

“Old,” said Mrs Watchett evenly from the top of the stairs, “but still of very good hearing.”

“I beg your pardon, madam,” Kent blurted, red-faced, but she had already vanished into her room.

“We must look around,” Holmes said, ignoring his companion’s sudden discomfiture.  “If there are any clues to Maddoc’s whereabouts or answers to what is happening in London, they will be found here.”

“We don’t have that right,” Kent asserted.  “Where is our warrant to search?  As far as we know, Moesen Maddoc has committed no crime, is not even suspected of one.”

“You are an agent of the official police and are bound by certain arbitrary restrictions,” Holmes pointed out.  “I am guided by a higher code, compelled by the bounds of my conscience.  You know as well as I do, Moesen Maddoc is at the heart of the mystery we seek to unravel; I do not know about you, Inspector, but I will not let William Dunning perish simply because of a scrap of paper.”

“Well, we’ve come this far,” Kent sighed after a moment.  “In for a penny, in for a pound.  Besides, my presence on the Dunning case could hardly be called official.”

They made a quiet search of the ground floor rooms, finding nothing, eventually working their way toward the glass-bound laboratory.  They passed through the shadowy dining room and entered a long panelled corridor vaguely lit by light seeping from under a far door.  They opened the door and stepped into the voluminous room beyond.

“Good God, Holmes!” Kent exclaimed.

“There might be an element of truth to Wells’ tale after all,” Holmes remarked dryly.